Monday, January 28, 2013

Back on November 11th 2012

I suggested that the GOP had two choices open to it, either make some ideological and policy changes in order to cohort rising minority voting cohorts OR double down on voter suppression in a quest to create a majority by legal diktat.
And wonder of wonders as of last week it looked like the GOP was opting for BOTH choices...Down in DC John McCain et al were talking up serious immigration reform while out in Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker was musing over gerrymandering the electoral college (itself a gigantic voter-suppression boondoogle that dates back to the Founding Fathers).
Allocating electoral votes by congressional district outcomes, advantages the GOP to a certain point over the short term, but implementing such a measure in states like Texas, North Carolina or Georgia would only strengthen the electoral hand of the many many undocuemented immigrants that John McCain is trying to enfranchise.
In other words what we lose in California we'd pick up in Texas.
That having been said the whole thing is a bad idea leading to a succession of elections where the popular vote and the electoral college vote would be at variance thus delegitimizing US elections to an appalling degree.
Frankly the electoral college ought to be abolished, the proof that the GOP is hellbent on voter suppression as a strategy lies in the fact that there is no public calls on the right for the abolition of said institution. They wanna corrupt it and place it in their service, not get rid of it.